Activists Hope "Selma" Screening Will Make Impression On Local Youths
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- Bloody Sunday in Selma, March 7, 1965.
Alabama State Police and sheriff's deputies brutally beat African-American marchers, who were demanding nothing more than the right to vote. News cameras were rolling. The whole world was watching.
Fifty years later, a film called "Selma" dramatizes the moment. And 500 students from area middle schools went to the Waterworks Cinema to witness a time of shame and redemption.
They will saw the movie for free, thanks to a fundraising effort led by activist Paradise Gray.
"This is an incredible way of letting young people know that freedom ain't free," he says. "It took a lot of people to come together, black, white, young and old."
The march in Selma led to the Voting Rights Act. Jamar Thrasher and the Black Political Empowerment Project hopes seeing the film will encourage more young people to vote.
"Hopefully the spirit of the movie will motivate you to start a life of responsible civic engagement. And that's all we want to do for the students today."
The film runs two hours and fifteen minutes. And that's enough time to change a lifetime of impressions.
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